15 months after bloodbath in Iraq, young veteran takes his life

Another needless, senseless death. Another family left to grieve. Another community stunned. I just read some of the comments on this article. A great piece of writing that is for sure. The comments however have me completely baffled. After all these years, I will never understand how anyone can be surprised by any of this.

We all talk a lot about supporting the troops but that is as long as we don't have to really invest any real time in finding out what they are going thru; reading news reports, what little there are of them; or even taking the time to show up at events to honor our veterans. So how is it that so many in this country claim they support the troops yet never really mention doing anything to prove it?

What will it take to get them involved in any of this? How many more tragedies like the death of
Spc. Trevor Hogue will it take?

Ok, there were excuses to not know anything about the Vietnam veterans coming back with PTSD and committing suicide. Back then we knew very little of any of this reported. They came home, suffered in silence just as generations before them had. We had the excuse of no one cared because no one knew. Now we have no legitimate excuses because Vietnam veterans put an end to our ignorance of PTSD. It cost them about 200,000 by the last figure in and it's easy to understand that the real number will never be known. Much like the suicide deaths of today, too many families will not be willing to come out publicly and discuss any of this.

I've read countless comments on other articles and the people claiming to support the troops the most have been truly oblivious to all of this. All they need to become informed was the willingness to look for what I've found online all these years. Yes, it's hard to track it but they don't have to track as much as I do. All they have to do is read their local paper and spend sometime online looking for other reports. They can get Google Alerts the same way I do. There is so much they can do but they just don't think the troops and our veterans are worthy of the effort. This I find more shocking than the deaths of our troops by suicide. It's their lives for Heaven's sake and all that is needed is a little time from the rest of us. We will keep reading more reports like this unless we're all willing to step up.

15 months after bloodbath in Iraq, young veteran takes his life
By Cynthia Hubert
chubert@sacbee.com
Published: Thursday, Jun. 11, 2009 - 12:00 am Page 1A

On March 7, 2007, Army Spc. Trevor Hogue was inside his barracks in Baghdad, describing his morning on the battlefield.

"I saw things today that I think will mess me up for life," Hogue typed to his mother, Donna, as she sat at her computer thousands of miles away from Iraq, in Granite Bay.

That day the young soldier, whose assignment included driving a Humvee through perhaps the most dangerous ZIP code on the globe, saw his sergeant blown to pieces. He saw the bodies of half of the men in his platoon torn apart. Heads were cut off and limbs severed. It happened 30 yards in front of him, and he had never been so afraid, he told his mom.

"My arms are around you," Donna Hogue wrote. "You'll be alright."

But Hogue never really recovered. Last week, he committed suicide by hanging himself in the backyard of his childhood home. He was 24 years old.

After his 15-month tour in Iraq ended and he came home the following February, Hogue suffered bouts of depression. He slept too much and uncharacteristically lashed out at strangers. Loud noises disturbed him. Responsible and law-abiding in the past, he became somewhat reckless and was charged with a DUI.

Despite symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, he never was formally diagnosed with the condition. His mother said he never filed a disability claim with the government in part because it required too much paperwork. If the disorder had been confirmed, the military would have been responsible for paying medical benefits.

Hogue talked to counselors and took medications for depression and anxiety. But he was skeptical the treatments were helping him, according to his family.
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